That was the case with Next Level Games when it came to the Year of Luigi. Amazingly enough, the studio found out about Nintendo’s plans for Mario’s brother on the same day as the Nintendo Direct presentation. That’s despite the fact that Next Level is playing a big role in the Year of Luigi – the company is just about to release Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon on the 3DS.

The game’s producer, Ken Yeeloy, told the Financial Post:

“We found out about the Year of Luigi at the same time you did. We woke up that morning and found out through the [Nintendo direct] video!”

Source

Next Level has been working on “new top-secret game” since October

Posted on 12 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Podcast Stories | 0 comments

Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon developer Next Level Games has apparently been creating a secret project since October.

Next Level was, obviously, focusing a good amount of its efforts on wrapping up the 3DS game for Nintendo. But it appears that the studio was also hard at work on some kind of unannounced project.

Lead designer Devon Blanchet lists “a new top-secret game” on his LinkedIn profile. If development started in October, this new game has been in the works for six months.

Blanchet’s resume doesn’t provide any further details. It’s unclear is Next Level’s next game is being made in partnership with Nintendo or a different publisher.

Source, Via 1, Via 2

Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon devs on making a third-person action game

Posted on 12 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, News, Podcast Stories | 0 comments

Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon was an interesting project for Next Level Games to tackle. It was the company’s first major game that was being developed in collaboration with Nintendo as an action title.

For supervisor Yoshihito Ikebata, while he didn’t have much experience with the genre, his desire to make a new Luigi’s Mansion motivated him to work on Dark Moon.

“How did that happen? I guess I just wanted to work on a game like that.
I guess the strongest element of me getting involved with this was just because I, personally, really wanted to see a sequel to “Luigi’s Mansion.” Now, of course, that was battling within me, against the anxiety that I felt about working on a kind of game that I hadn’t really had a lot of experience with before, but I would say that in the end, the desire to make a sequel to “Luigi’s Mansion” was the stronger feeling, and it won out.”

Zen Studios unveils CastleStorm’s multiplayer modes

Posted on 12 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments

It’s been awhile since we last heard about CastleStorm – close to a year. Today, Zen Studios finally unveiled the game’s multiplayer mode.

CastleStorm’s multiplayer aspects are kept separate from the single-player campaign. That means you can progress – level up and gather experience – independently. All modes will playable locally or online.

Here’s a rundown of each, straight from Zen Studios:

1 vs. 1 split-screen mode: simply try and beat your opponent by bashing in their castle. Choose your side (the noble Knights or the ragtag Vikings) and then choose your arsenal of weapons wisely. Face off, castle to castle and the first to completely demolish his or her opponent’s castle wins!

Survival Co-op: Two players team up to fight off waves of enemies together! Assign one player to control the ballista and the other to control ground forces. Good timing and great aim are essential in Survival Co-op as friendly fire could be harmful to your own troops on the ground.

Last Stand Co-op mode: Would you rather ditch the castle and do some hand-to-hand combat out in the battlefield? Check out the Last Stand Co-op mode where both players control a hero and battle wave after wave of enemies together! The object is to stay alive as long as you can, but remember, enemies can come from either side so be ready.

Take a look at the video above for CastleStorm’s multiplayer in action.

Source

Pictures: Miyamoto’s trip to NYC

Posted on 12 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, Images | 0 comments

Nintendo posted a few photos to its Facebook account showing Shigeru Miyamoto’s visit to New York City a few weeks ago. View the images in the gallery below.

Source

Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon opening, gameplay, talk from Next Level

Posted on 12 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, Videos | 0 comments

ASCII Media will start publishing “Dengeki Nintendo” magazine in April

Posted on 12 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments

The magazine ‘Dengeki Playstation’ has been around for quite some time now, but apparently its publisher is looking to expand its horizons. Starting this April, ASCII Media will begin putting out “Dengeki Nintendo”, a similar publication focused on the efforts of the Big N instead of the Sony.

The first issue hits store shelves on April 20th and will feature Monster Hunter 4.

Via Siliconera

GBA emulator briefly available for iPhone via “Awesome Baby Names” app

Posted on 12 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, General Nintendo, News, Podcast Stories | 0 comments

People like putting copyrighted material onto the Apple App Store for iPhone and iPad– that’s not terribly surprising on any given day. What’s surprising about the story we have today is that our perpetrators hid the copyrighted material inside of an app that helps you generate names for your baby called “Awesome Baby Names”.

The app has since been removed, but while it was up users could pay $1.99 for it, and if they knew the secret tapping combination the emulator would boot up and give you access to many of the GBA’s best games in ROM form. Reports are that it wasn’t a very good emulator, however, citing control issues and graphical glitches all around that made it not terribly fun to play.

Via PocketGamer

EA CEO stepping down, leaving the company

Posted on 12 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Podcast Stories | 0 comments

EA has announced that its CEO is stepping down and leaving the company. On March 30, John Riccitiello will relinquish his role as Chief Executive Officer along with his Board of Directors status. The company plans to begin its search for a new, permanent CEO and will “consider internal and external candidates”.

Of his departure, Riccitiello said:

“EA is an outstanding company with creative and talented employees, and it has been an honor to serve as the Company’s CEO. I am proud of what we have accomplished together, and after six years I feel it is the right time for me pass the baton and let new leadership take the Company into its next phase of innovation and growth. I remain very optimistic about EA’s future – there is a world class team driving the Company’s transition to the next generation of game consoles.”

You can find the official PR below.

Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon devs don’t think their game would work well on mobile platforms

Posted on 12 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, News, Podcast Stories | 0 comments

Some have said that Nintendo should go third-party. Others, like analysts, have suggested that the company should bring some of their content to mobile platforms including the iPhone and Android. However, Nintendo’s top brass including Satoru Iwata have not exactly been open the possibility.

One game that wouldn’t work so well on mobile devices is Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon, according to its developers. A couple of the team’s staffers were asked about their thoughts about whether they could imagine the 3DS game on a piece of hardware such as the iPhone, but both feel that it’s a perfect match for Nintendo’s portable.

First up, here’s one comment from supervisor Yoshihito Ikebata:

“Actually, I really think that the feeling and the core of the game is only possible because it’s on this particular hardware, the 3DS. And it is really hard to imagine it running on anything else.”

And another from Next Level Games director Bryce Holliday:

“For me, I would add that Luigi’s an expressive personality. We spent a lot of time on the presentation and showing a lot of his face. Having your fingers on top of him—like you would have to do on a smartphone—would occlude some of that character. It’s nice to have buttons basically. It also might be hard to do a fishing mechanic with siding and tapping on a touch screen rather than having a circle pad and shoulder buttons.”

Source